FICTION NOW
I.
Raymond Federman
SURFICTION-A POSITION
PROPOSITION ONE -
The Nature of Fiction
Writing about fiction today, one could begin with the usual
cliches - that the novel is dead; that fiction is no longer possible be–
cause real fiction happens everyday. But in what sense is life fiction?
Fiction is made of words, and language creates meaning as it goes
along. To write is to
'produce
meaning and not to
reproduce
a pre–
existing meaning. Fiction cannot
be
reality, or a representation of
reality, or an imitation, or even a recreation of reality, it can only
be
a reality
-
an autonomous reality whose only relation with the
real world is to improve that world. To create fiction is, in fact, a
way to abolish reality, and especially to abolish the notion that
reality is truth.
In the fiction of the future, all distinctions between the real
and the imaginary, between the conscious and the subconscious, be–
tween the past and the present, between truth and untruth, will be
abolished. The primary purpose of fiction will be to unmask its own
fictionality, to expose the metaphor of its own fraudulence, and not
pretend any longer to pass for reality, for truth, or for beauty. Con–
sequently, fiction will no longer be regarded as a mirror of life, as
a pseudorealistic document that informs us about life, nor will it be
judged on the basis of its social, moral, psychological, metaphysical,
commercial value, or whatever, but on the basis of what it is and
what it does as an autonomous art form in its own right.
PROPOSITION TWO -
The Reading of Fiction
The very act of reading a book, starting at the top of the first
page and moving from left to right, top to bottom, page after page
to the end in a consecutive prearranged manner, has become
boring
